Oh My God I Got An Email From Staff

Dismissing Romeo and Juliet as dumb horny teens is OUT, crying because every attempt these children made to show love, kindness and tolerance in the face of senseless hate only led to more violence and death is IN

The Beetle in the Box

AKA The Private Language Argument:

In Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, he proposed a thought experiment that challenged the way we look at introspection and how it informs the language we use to describe sensations. 

For the thought experiment, Wittgenstein asks us to imagine a group of individuals, each of whom has a box containing something called a “beetle.” No one can see into anyone else’s box. Everyone is asked to describe their beetle — but each person only knows their own beetle. [And] each person can only talk about their own beetle, as there might be different things in each person’s box. Consequently, Wittgenstein says the subsequent descriptions cannot have a part in the “language game.” Over time, people will talk about what is in their boxes, but the word “beetle” simply ends up meaning “that thing that is in a person’s box.”

Why is this bizarre thought experiment disturbing? The mental experiment points out that the beetle is like our minds, and that we can’t know exactly what it is like in another individual’s mind. We can’t know exactly what other people are experiencing, or the uniqueness of their perspective. It’s an issue that’s very much related to the so-called hard problem of consciousness and the phenomenon of qualia.

Read 8 more Philosophical Thought Experiments That Will Keep You Up at Night via io9

MAY: ephemerality, emptiness, evolution & ecstasy.

May 3, The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1910-1914

May, Christina Rossetti

Mural, Mahmoud Darwish

Courage, Anne Sexton

Letters to Véra, Vladimir Nabokov

May Morning, Stephen Vincent Benet

The Sensible Thing, F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Young May Moon, Thomas Moore

Spring: House of Light, Mary Oliver

Corinna’s Going a Maying, Robert Herrick

May 27, The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1910-1913

A reminder that healing is not linear, does not happen overnight and sometimes you discover wounds that you didn’t even know were there. Set backs are a part of your journey. Be easy on yourself.

Dolce & Gabbana 

i am a serene and lovely person. yes absolutely everything bothers me & i go through life in a state of constant aggravation and annoyance & have to physically restrain myself from breaking down in tears over how utterly irritated i am sometimes. but i am serene and lovely nonetheless

having to come to terms with the fact that love is not an everlasting performance in which you attempt to retain the attention of your significant other but rather a release of control and putting faith into them and trusting them to choose to stay with you no matter what you have to offer

Caroline Bird

I’d wear these baroque porcelain corsets in battle 🗡

miranda july / don delillo / holly warburton / richard siken / aaron diaz / ross gay / robert anton wilson / david foster wallace